General Fusion in the news

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

For my part, I can only guess that lining up financial commitments is what is in play at this point. Oil prices are down so some backers in tar sands may not be in as glorious of a position cash flow wise. That and emphasis on US resource development. Then to the contrary is the pipeline approval. A lot more PR

Tri Alpha also will be lining up resources at some point, maybe now, as C2W results come in (not sure their schedule either). More in the news. Some PR

And Ladajo said EMC2 is or will be doing funded simulations soon / now. In the QT, zero PR
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

ANSYS has written a blogpost on their cooperation with General Fusion: http://www.ansys-blog.com/general-fusio ... imulation/.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

When ANSYS is able to simulate the plasma compression and predict what will work and what won't then I will be impressed.

GF is looking for news to stay in the news. GF will need to raise a boat load of money as soon as they have enough data to convince skeptics that their new full scale plasma injector will do the job. This will likely be the year to kick it off.

Tri Alpha is right there too, except they have the integrated machine, C-2W, not pieces.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

New CEO to replace interim. Plans are to go for full scale, but money looks to be tight.
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news ... 1491311052
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Skipjack »

Whenever large leadership changes happen at a company, my alarm bells go off. Makes it seem like they are in trouble.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

Keep up SJ. The change happened last September or thereabouts. They had an interim CEO while they got another. If you want to find out why Gilliland left, it is up thread.

GF has all the pieces now, the toughest was the plasma compression without losing heat and avoiding plasma contamination, something LP is still struggling with. So, don't worry, or do worry for Helion. The race is on.

I still think Tri Alpha has a good shot with their C-2W machine, should be in operation in a couple of months. That may put them ahead of GF.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Skipjack »

mvanwink5 wrote:Keep up SJ. The change happened last September or thereabouts. They had an interim CEO while they got another. If you want to find out why Gilliland left, it is up thread.

GF has all the pieces now, the toughest was the plasma compression without losing heat and avoiding plasma contamination, something LP is still struggling with. So, don't worry, or do worry for Helion. The race is on.

I still think Tri Alpha has a good shot with their C-2W machine, should be in operation in a couple of months. That may put them ahead of GF.
I am not worried about Helion :)
From what I understand, TAE has shifted their plans a bit to the right (now 2027 for commercial plant prototype).
With LP, I assume you mean LPP (Lawrenceville Plasma Physics)? Yes, they are struggling with plasma purity (among other things). They are also working on a tiny budget and all their issues should always be regarded with that in mind.
Either way, I would not be worried if someone beat Helion to Q>1. The moment someone gets it, investors will jump on the train and there will be a dot- com like boom of investment into fusion. It will be good for everyone. In fact, I hope someone gets there sooner rather than later. If they beat Helion, good for everyone. I still think Helion has a good shot at being first, though. There are a few others that I find quite interesting lately. I quite like the work that Uri Shumlak is doing with FuZE and what PPPL is doing with their PFRC devices. The former is interesting because it is potentially incredibly compact and cheap and has had some good results (in line with simulations). The latter is interesting because they have had some quite impressive results with their also very compact device. Confinement times were particularly impressive for an FRC device.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

Commercial dates are cash dependent and those timelines are pessimistic to keep ITER funding trolls at bay. For Tri Alpha, big money was required for C-2W and C-2U success had to be breakthrough to win it. Now C-2W is close to build completion.

All the FRC guys seem to have to build the whole machine to test, GF is building and proving full scale components, except the liquid lead chamber is 1/3 scale as the spherical compression can be tested and proven at that scale. GF's risk is now mainly contamination during lead chamber shock compression, always something, but their plan is to use lithium coatings which has worked to solve the contamination in the full scale injector and latest 40 cm explosive test chamber (the explosive test chamber simulates the lead shock compression as the 14 piston 1/3 scale chamber is not good enough to do that).

Polywell can't even get funding to build so they are trying to convince with a simulation. Simulation has gotten a boost with a breakthrough in ITER numerical plasma work (my guess, no inside scoop, others would know but can't speak) and may be good enough to dislodge build money.

Funding seems to be the biggest obstacle because of known unknowns, and worse, unknown unknowns, in machine scaling, and risk strategies drag out the time lines immensely. I don't know how long it will take to commission the big C-2W Tri Alpha machine. Protecting such a big machine during start up to avoid project catastrophe is the critical path. 2017 may be a big year for GF cash and preliminary Tri Alpha results.

Yes, the great hope is that if one company is successful nervous money might break loose for the others. I used to eschew all criminal conspiracy worries as pure nut wack job imaginations. After Stuxnet and $ trillions at stake, nothing would surprise me. That is how close I think these projects are.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Skipjack »

mvanwink5 wrote: Now C-2W is close to build completion.
Do you have a citation for that? Also, is C-2W even supposed to do break even yet? I thought it was just meant to confirm scaling laws and their new neutral beam injectors.
mvanwink5 wrote:
All the FRC guys seem to have to build the whole machine to test
Helion previously built various sub- scale prototypes, each intended to test an individual aspect of their design. Then moving on to the next part of the triple product and making sure it was holding up as well. Those individual aspects, except temperature were demonstrated at levels required for break even. Temperature was close enough though to give them confidence (5 keV) .
Anyway, they have been past that point of development for a few years now.
mvanwink5 wrote:
Polywell can't even get funding to build so they are trying to convince with a simulation. Simulation has gotten a boost with a breakthrough in ITER numerical plasma work (my guess, no inside scoop, others would know but can't speak) and may be good enough to dislodge build money.

Funding seems to be the biggest obstacle because of known unknowns, and worse, unknown unknowns, in machine scaling, and risk strategies drag out the time lines immensely.
This is true. Funding has been the main issue holding back nuclear fusion.
mvanwink5 wrote:
Protecting such a big machine during start up to avoid project catastrophe is the critical path.
Not sure what you mean with that.
mvanwink5 wrote:
2017 may be a big year for GF cash and preliminary Tri Alpha results.
We will see.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

http://trialphaenergy.com/wp-content/up ... nzeTAE.pdf
Translation:
In April the flsico Miclrl Binderbauer, chief technology fficerdell'azienda, said to gegneri in- dismounting and carmibalizzarne the pieces to build a re- actor more ava-nzato, C2-W, which should be flnito in mid-2017.
So, that is Tri Alpha's schedule.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Skipjack »

mvanwink5 wrote:http://trialphaenergy.com/wp-content/up ... nzeTAE.pdf
Translation:
In April the flsico Miclrl Binderbauer, chief technology fficerdell'azienda, said to gegneri in- dismounting and carmibalizzarne the pieces to build a re- actor more ava-nzato, C2-W, which should be flnito in mid-2017.
So, that is Tri Alpha's schedule.
Ah, of course it is the one article that I did not bother with, since it is in Italian ;)
OK, so we can assume first plasma by June- July or so. It will take them a while to fine tune things, though. I would not expect any significant results before the end of the year, probably more likely mid next year.
Is this one meant to achieve break even yet? I am not so sure about that.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

C-2W has as its target just to scale up the temperature. I expect results to be quick. Indeed C-2U results last year were quick as they already knew what they wanted to test and the only question was what would happen? It was a make or break situation. However, we may not know what happens with C-2W. I expect really big money will be needed.

As big machines and big money is invested, the expectation of success has to be very high. That is the point after all. So, the expectation of C-2W success has to be very high. You have seen the size of C-2W?

Same with GF. Their next step is the full size +200 piston machine, even though it won't be a continuous operating machine (piston strikes every second, collection of tritium gas and auxiliaries, etc).
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Skipjack »

mvanwink5 wrote: As big machines and big money is invested, the expectation of success has to be very high. That is the point after all. So, the expectation of C-2W success has to be very high. You have seen the size of C-2W?
I thought C-2W was about the same size as C-2U bit with 6 neutral beam injectors?

Skipjack
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Skipjack »

mvanwink5 wrote: Same with GF. Their next step is the full size +200 piston machine, even though it won't be a continuous operating machine (piston strikes every second, collection of tritium gas and auxiliaries, etc).
Of course it is not continuous operation. It will never be. It is a pulsed reactor design.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

What mvanwink5 meant is that the next device by GF will be designed to last for only a limited amount of compression cycles to save money. A real power plant in the GF design would of course need to be able to compress the plasma continuously with ~1 Hz for many years.

When pondering on positions in black horse race one should not forget Tokamak Energy whose next device could give rather interesting results if it works as expected. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Sp ... 11702.html

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